Pawtucket Red Sox Add Brandon Phillips To Roster In A Flurry Of Roster Moves

The Pawtucket Red Sox have officially added Brandon Phillips to their official roster. He has been with the Lowell Spinners since he signed with the Red Sox organization. With the Lowell Spinners, Philips hit .318 in 6 games while hitting 1 home run and 7 RBI’s. Phillips has spent a majority of his 16 years as a major league ball player with the Cincinnati Reds before playing the 2017 season with the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Angles.

In 1893 major league games, Phillips has hit well, posting a .275 batting average while connecting for 210 career home homes and 949 RBI’s. Phillips also spent 4 seasons with the Cleveland Indians. Phillips will be batting third for the Paw Sox on Saturday night as the designated hitter.

Trevor Kelley Added

The Paw Sox added RHP Trevor Kelley from AA Portland this morning as well. Kelley did pitch in 2 games for the Paw Sox earlier this season while he had 3 and 1/3 scoreless innings for the team. In 2018, he has posted a 3.60 ERA in 30 innings. This is between AA Portland Sea Dogs and AAA Pawtucket Red Sox.

Other Transactions

The Paw Sox have activated infielder Ivan De Jesus Jr. off of the temporary inactive list. He was placed on the list on July 11th.

The Red Sox bullpen carousel also continued this morning as the major league team recalled Bobby Poyner from AAA Pawtucket. To make room for Poyner in Boston, the Red Sox optioned Robby Scott back down to AAA Pawtucket. Scott pitched in two innings for the Red Sox on Friday night while throwing 37 pitches. Due to that heavy workload, Scott was probably not going to be available on Saturday for the Red Sox and it gives the Red Sox flexibility out of their bullpen.

In total, the Paw Sox have had 14 player transactions in the last three days.

PawSox Notebook: Ortega Up Quick After Draft, Witte Back In Town, Buttrey Gets Closer Shot With Brasier In Boston

The Boston Red Sox transferred their 19th round draft pick from the 2018 MLB draft to Pawtucket on Friday after just 16 games in Lowell. That player is Jonathan Ortega who has batted .326 (14-for-43) in just 16 games with the Spinners.

Prior to Friday’s game PawSox Manager Kevin Boles said a few words on Ortega already being in Triple-A Pawtucket.

“I have talked with Corey Wimberly, their manager in Lowell. He’s a guy that can play shortstop, second base, and third. He has impressed them defensively. Looked up his numbers his last 10 games he’s been competitive at the plate. So we will see what we get. He’s depth for us, we’ve kind of run sort with our roster these days. But hopefully he’s a guy that gets an opportunity here in the next couple of days.” Boles said prior to Friday’s game.

On Friday the injured Marcus Walden threw a simulated game, and by all accounts it went very well.

“Good.” Said Boles. ” He got up and down twice, 15 pitches each time. Said he felt good afterwords. The ball was coming out of his hand pretty good.”

On Thursday night, the first game back after the all-star break, Ty Buttrey was called upon to finish out the game. With Ryan Brasier in Boston it was Buttrey’s first chance at taking the closer role with Brasier up in the Majors. Boles liked what he saw but there was rust.

” I liked it. But again, watching our pitchers yesterday. With Buttrey, it looked like he was getting some of the rust off a little bit. So to me, it was a little bit suspect at times. But again, he’s got power at the end of the games, this is something that maybe we will continue. The one thing you have got to make sure that you don’t run into a trap. You are pitching at the end of a game, you still have to use your secondary pitches. And I think sometimes the trap can be is if you are in the 9th inning and the game is on the line, you just want to go straight power. And so, you still have to have some balance in that really.”

One thing that Buttrey has improved upon lately is mixing.

“Before, he was at 70-72% fastball percentage and we are starting to see a little bit more balance with the off-speed. We are going to get there. Again, this takes time. This is something that’s not going to happen overnight. You are not going to get a 50-50 split within a day or two. It’s just not realistic. Nor is it fair to ask. There is some balance here and another trap that guys fall into is that they hear the noise and that they know they are competing and doing well. And if they are blowing fastballs by a guy, they don’t want to run into their bat speed. So they want to put up numbers here so people will take a look at them up top. He’s done that, and now the plan is to step further on how we can develop so when he gets up to Boston. Whenever that maybe. That he is able to use that mix.”

Boston Red Sox Call Up Sam Travis, Witte Back In Pawtucket And A 2018 Draft Pick Already In AAA Pawtucket

On Friday the Boston Red Sox placed outfielder Andrew Benintendi on the bereavement list, the corresponding move was recalling Sam Travis from the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Travis has batted .224 in 205 at-bats this season for the Pawtucket Red Sox.

This is the 24-year-old’s second recall of the 2018 season with the first-base/left fielder batting .167 in 12 at-bats across 4 games for Boston this season.

For Pawtucket they needed to call in the reserves to help fill their roster out with infielder Jantzen Witte being transferred back to Pawtucket from Double-A Portland and then infielder Jonathan Ortega being transferred all the way from Single-A Lowell.

The 28-year-old Witte has appeared in 193 games with Pawtucket over the course of the last two seasons with the infielder spending the entirety of the 2017 season with the PawSox. Witte has a career .249 batting average in Triple-A and can play first, second, third, and left field if needed.

As for Ortega, the 21-year-old was drafted by Boston in the 19th round of the 2018 MLB draft and has 16 games played in his professional career all coming with Lowell. The Texas native has batted .326 in 43 at-bats and can played second, short, and third base.

Pawtucket will take on the Syracuse Chiefs on Friday night with Tommy Milone taking on Boston’s rehabbing Drew Pomeranz.